caracas to mourn the death of venezuela's president hugo chavez coming up we'll take you live to venezuela where mourners are paying their respects to their own leader. and u.s. senator rand paul is still talking on the senate floor he's been going strong for the past eight hours now the chairman's of filibuster cia nominee john brennan and protect americans from potential drone strikes on u.s. soil. plus there is a threat to our national defense that's closer than you'd think the military is struggling with out of shape recruits as the ranks of eligible soldiers continue to fit coming up we'll get the skinny on the efforts to drop those pounds. it's wednesday march six eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. . well tonight venezuelans began their seven days of mourning following the death

of their president hugo chavez this is a live picture from caracas where hundreds of mourners are gathered and many others are watching this historic event live on venezuelan state t.v. chavez died yesterday after losing his long battle with cancer he was fifteen years old earlier in the day chavez his body arrived at the day to go on a military academy that's the live picture you see here all this is where his body will lie in state for three days vice president nicolas maduro will serve as interim president and under venezuela's law an election will be held in thirty days now the big question what happens next for this latin american country r.t. spanish correspondent maria starr stana brings us the latest from caucus when israel is now grieving the loss of its charismatic leader. charles supporters have taken to the streets across the country and the seven day mourning period has been

declared the president of venezuela died on tuesday afternoon nearly two years after being diagnosed with cancer fighting back two years why is president nicolas maduro announced the news describing his debts as intensely painful and he's through tragedy for the country when as well as mildred teves life on state television to pledge their loyalty to honduras who chavez named as he used successor one of the world's best known socialist leaders and a staunch critic of the united states chavez has undergone surgery four times and had a number of sessions of kenya to be in the cuban capital have ana despite his ailing house chavez was reelected in october last year to a forced term however he was not able to attend his you know gratian ceremony casting doubt on the succession of power new elections in israel now have to take place within so two days. that was. spanish correspondent maria.

chavez's funeral is scheduled for this friday meantime it's very likely chavez a successor vice president nicolas maduro could face off against opposition leader and rig a company like assume chavez defeated and last october's presidential election chavez was both charismatic and controversial and while he had strong critics he also had passionate followers among them political hip hop group rebel diaz the bronx based brothers use their music to spread their political message take a listen to part of one of their songs and titled make a. good job. down this. story. of the duo join me earlier to talk about how their music was inspired by chavez and what the leader's death means to them personally really like to say that chavez lives in the spirit of the bought

a very revolutionary and he is alive and well the president of south bronx as he has supported the community to stop bronson's so many poor people war wide and inspired us with his courage to stand up against imperialism and the forces of imperialism and for us we def that it's a huge loss for all of latin america well you know. brittin doubts that we will continue to support the bolivarian revolution and that we will continue to speak out against elizabeth now i know that you your music is inspired by chavez can you can you tell us about how how he's inspired some of your your songs were originally from chile and you know we had some other young being who was unfortunately toppled by a cia sponsored our coup and what followed was a dictatorship. but for the eyes of

a child is in in due time of the born again revolution has been a spell out for us as are the twenty first century i did it for us it was the idea of reclaiming our power for the people and using our the resources of mad america for the people of latin america as opposed to corporations that continue to see exploit for us. the revolution in venezuela has been a profound inspiration and beyond that they have supported the work that we do in the bronx directly we've never had a push or obama visit the south bronx but we had charges in south bronx in two dots and five where he pledged to give discounted heating oil to the poor communities in the poorest congressional district in the united states which is what we live in hunts in the bronx in new york and beyond that you start a social development plans through but they're always there when it's when i understand city or the citgo here in the united states to support organizations in

the south bronx that were doing work that reflected the values of the program revolution so for us are both their favorites their inspiration about as well are a concrete support for the work that we were doing in the south bronx now people like yourselves and people in the the bronx like you had mentioned chavez does have a very strong passionate following but he also was a controversial figure. his critics are quick to point out problems under his rule for example the skyrocketing crime rate the currency there has been devalued and restricting freedom of the press despite these glaring problems he still has a very devoted following why. i think that also you have to also understand that. the revolution is a process and in fourteen years you're not going up you know say turn around five hundred years of oppression and i think that more than anything we have understand of the main green cap the media has had

a key role in portraying him. in a negative fashion you feel that in venezuela more than any western hemisphere country that there is democracy fully living you know when you look at their literacy rates when you look at education money going towards education and i'm going towards who are like we have here in this country in venice when i but it's limited it's going to have the threat of being hit by a drone strikes you know i mean so i think that it's also important to look at the angle which is being you know portrayed and i think that for us we can point to perspective that that if you're on the side of poor people you are just out of rubble. now the big question is what's going to happen next what's going to happen in venezuela now that their longtime leader has passed away do you think that whoever replaces him will be able to carry on his legacy well for us you know we've had the privilege of being in business when i and sharing with us when i and folks

that i work in culture and revolutionary culture. and with our conversations with them it's really been you know. the revolution was not shot it was the revolution is the people is the people that make up the don't say when i was the local councils the area that's what makes up the road and what's what has occurred in the last fourteen years has been a cultural shift the shift where these. the years of individual ism are thrown out the window an ideal of collective success of building a collective successful society within minutes well that's the culture that's been promoted and so for us what we are are hopeful that that young people in business well i will step up and carry this process forward we understand that this process is being carried forward in the context of continued attacks by the united states by the cia and the young people are conscious and they realize it and we should point them that their movements be radicalized and he forward despite the loss of

job. creation in this year of out it's lives in all of us and in many of the people of venezuela and i think there will be invigorated to take the streets and really you know she does revolution a lot ok thanks guys appreciate you coming on the show and sharing with us your music and how he has inspired the work that you do that was going zollo and rodriguez i read rigo the name their band members of the hip hop group rebel diaz. still ahead here in our two u.s. senator rand paul a speech is on a speaking marathon on the senate floor he's determined to filibuster cia nominee john brennan and protect americans from potential drone strikes on u.s. soil we'll have a complete story for you after the party. the same story doesn't make it news no softball interviews no puff pieces some tough questions if you.

let me let me i want to let me ask you a point. here. is what we're having a debate we have our night i. believe this was a bad thing there again hearing the story we're going to talk about the arraignment . the drone campaign is coming under scrutiny after a statement from attorney general eric holder here is a live look at senator paul on the floor of the senate where he's been speaking for

more than eight hours in an attempt to filibuster cia nominee john brennan senators ted cruz mike lee ron wyden lago rubio and saxby chambliss are among those that joined him on the floor senator paul has repeatedly asked officials can the government conduct drone strikes on americans on u.s. soil here is holder's response to the senator quote i suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the united states for example the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland and the circumstances of a catastrophic attack well this answer has raised many more questions earlier i was joined by mike reg's of reason magazine and i asked him if he finds holder's position on drone strikes toward american citizens to be troubling. we don't

actually know if he's ruling out or not ruling out i think if you want to look at the exchange that was that sort of put the finest point on this it was when ted cruz senator ted cruz asked holder could you kill somebody on u.s. soil who did not pose an imminent threat because if you think back to early february and we saw that white paper from the department of justice about when targeted killing could be used there was a real imminence how soon violence could happen from a potential terrorist was not very well defined so crew said if it's not defined we do if this person is just talking can you kill them holder's answer was i don't think that would be appropriate but what cruz is asking and what rand paul is asking is is it constitutional you know pro questions of appropriateness have more to do with how you behavior at a party you know than whether or not you can use a drone or a sniper or something else to kill somebody on american soil without due process so you have crazy didn't gravel attorney dare county general holder today at let's

take a listen to this exchange. if a u.s. citizen on u.s. soil is not posing an immediate threat to life or bodily harm does the constitution allow a drone to kill that siddhis i would not think that that would be an appropriate use of any kind of lethal force we would deal with that in the way that we typically deal with a situation like that ok is this so what do you make of the holder's response there you know unclear yeah what we haven't seen him do yet and if you continue watching that exchange somebody i think maybe dianne feinstein senator feinstein who's also on the judiciary committee tries to interpret for cruz and she kind of asshole or he's not asking if you think it's appropriate she's he's asking if you think it's constitutional or not can you just answer yes or no and holder says i thought my answer was clear it's no he doesn't actually say the words it would be unconstitutional so it's sort of difficult to say whether or not the white house actually feels this way the examples that holder gave such as the attack on pearl harbor nine eleven that's also sort of confusing because you know there's no reason

to think that. was killed because he was plotting a new nine eleven you know and he was an american citizen so we don't this white house hasn't actually use that standard for any of their targeted killings interesting as you had mentioned this is raising some constitutional questions and senator rand paul is raising them today on the floor he's kind of keeping up the at this talking marathon and it had to filibuster want to bring up this clip of something he said today if we're fighting a war in afghanistan which we have been and that there are soldiers around the bend that are threat to our soldiers. there is no due process at that point but that's not what we're arguing about we're arguing about targeted strikes of people not involved in combat that's my concern all right so you know we here in the us we obviously pride ourselves on the right to due process but the what can this imply about citizens constitutional rights to

a trial well i think twelve years in what we're looking at is people are sort of they've lost whatever support they had or affectionately had for treating all types of potential terrorists as if they were enemy combatants former bush administration officials have made the argument that people who think we should have due process for targeted killing are basically saying this is a war on terror you don't you don't use due process and more due process for criminal justice issues but i think after we saw you know the killing of a sixteen year old american in yemen people are suddenly they've woken up to this idea that actually you know there is a place for criminal justice in the crude criminal justice protections provided by the constitution in combat in terrorism so i think that's sort of the shift we're saying just calling everything a war on terror calling everybody who might possibly dislike united states an enemy combatant it doesn't fly anymore. when holder says that these attacks are unlikely and hopefully will never be used and we are just talking about very extreme

circumstances to prevent a catastrophe from happening something like pearl harbor are or nine eleven do you admit that there he has some kind of a justification there when he says that the yeah i mean it's interesting because we're not just talking right about the d.o.j. responding to those potential threats using drones they're talking about the targeted killing white paper doesn't specify whether or not it's true owns i mean presumably if you can kill some without due process and you argue that this has that there are no constitutional protections afforded terrorists then something like cruel and unusual punishment come into it so really what's going on here we get caught. up in the drone issue but it's the argument the holder is making is if a threat is imminent the government can use whatever means it wants to to kill a potential terrorist and you know i mean if we knew nine eleven was happening all over again i mean tricky are we do we know that's going to happen tomorrow do we know it's going to happen a week from now do we know it's going to happen a month from now because you know

a month out do you need to kill him or can you rustam you know and i think that's what it really comes down to and even in domestic law enforcement cases we see cases where police officers a lot of times they're at the wrong decision but sometimes they don't they have to make the decision can we arrest or do we have to use lethal force so you know that's a question that holder should be able to answer if it's on domestic soil i think that's what is troubling a lot of people when it comes to holder's answer is that it kind of leaves leaves a very open and it still raises a lot more questions in terms of the specifics that you bring up mike thank you so much for coming on that was my great to see is the associate editor at reason magazine thank you well it is a seventeen pm and rand paul has been talking now for more than eight hours because set a new record if he surpasses twenty four hours and eighteen minutes a record set by former south carolina senator strom thurmond when he filibusters the civil rights act of one thousand and fifty seven probably not easy keeping it

going that long moments ago senator cruz tweeted started reading tweets about senator rand paul on the floor while many of us don't have the luxury to listen to all the important things he may have to say so we took it upon ourselves to show you some highlights iraq is today to begin to filibuster john brennan's nomination for the cia. i will speak until i can those no longer speak i will speak as long as it takes until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast there are constitution is important. time and breath of my throat already drawn i just got started. you know sitting out a sidewalk cafe smoking a smoke cigarettes anymore let's say they're sitting in a cafe if the president is not going to kill him why we just say he's not going to kill him there. if we're fighting a war in afghanistan which we have been and if their soldiers around the bend that

are a threat to our soldiers there is no due process at that point but that's not what we're arguing about we're arguing about targeted strikes of people not involved in combat that's my concern that. we one should plan on coming to morrow we're through for the night. at this without using the floor i'd like to entertain a question from senator from pennsylvania. which had previously brought a challenge in federal court to the legality of the authorization to target i walk in yemen. we will continue monitoring senator rand paul's filibuster on the senate floor for more on the latest information gutteral that site r.t. dot com slash usa. now do we surprising to the threat from members of the military

we're not talking about a threat from a foreign enemy but one they're battling right here at home as obesity plagues americans turns out members of the military are no exception these days military recruits are struggling with their weight then in the ranks of eligible soldiers are to correspondent megan lopez has more. genota bar. they don't call it special for nothing it's not a morning workout routine for the faint hearted two men to push up their where mt is to go to failure on the a group of young men gathered early in the morning with one mission in mind to join the u.s. military all start when the big hands on the sixty and go but as they swim and strain and sweat this group of recruits is already on a battlefield of sorts fighting one of america's biggest national security threat obesity it's absolutely a security issue i know we've you know terrorist of killed several thousand. in the

past decade you know ourselves you know just from heart disease. obesity diabetes will kill and hundreds of thousands since our nation began soldiers and sacrificed everything in order to protect the country that they love today they need to think about adopting healthier lifestyles in order to better serve their community today seventy five percent of men and women between the ages of seventeen and twenty four are not qualified to join and of the twenty five percent who are more than half cannot pass a physical training test the fitness tests are very easy the minimum standards are almost laughable obesity is such a huge problem for the military that it costs the defense department some one point one billion dollars annually in medical care former navy seals to smith is working to change that which is heroes of tomorrow initiative a program that is meant to get recruits military ready and that's no easy task. a lot of these kids have no athletic ability at all or i should say no athletic

history at all you know they have athletic ability they just never been tasked to use it and where there is a problem people are sure to look for short cuts the so-called take test is actually leading some recruits to consider extra. he measures like liposuction. in fact one center in north carolina boasts that forty percent of its clients are overweight military personnel but it looks like the military isn't going to change its standards anytime soon if anything the tests are going to become more stringent and more focused on real combat scenarios let them know it's not ninety all we're really strict now with the push pushing recruits through their physical limits could drain the well of military prospects even more in the fine for america's national security the more pressing war might be waged right here at home only this one is a combat against calories people need to understand that fitness one day will be the difference between them living or die their lives depend on their fitness level

. reporting in washington meghan lopez r.t. . for more on the obesity problem plaguing the military i was joined earlier by r t correspondent megan lopez who explained why it is that obesity has become a problem for the military and like now. well liz it's really a compilation of the problems that we're facing in american society today we have seen obesity become a huge problem where thirty percent of americans are obese these days now what i want to say is that six hundred twenty five soldiers last year alone were actually discharged from the military that's increased fifteen fold since two thousand and seven and really it does reflect the population we have people eating about thirty percent more calories annually in the u.s. they're also eating about fifteen pounds more of sugar annually right so yes it's a problem and society as a whole and it looks like members of the military are not exempt from this problem

could this actually pose a national security risk well that is what three hundred generals are actually saying it was that in a letter that was sent to the pentagon and around the u.s. from three hundred joint chiefs of staff retired admirals etc saying that is so big of a problem that it is actually our number one security threat no longer do we need to worry about the enemies outside we need to worry about the enemies within which is really our own weight so we spend about one billion dollars annually on medical costs for military personnel alone that's what the pentagon estimates and just to give you an example of one of the real big problems that people are facing there is something called a moral neck stress injury that is something that military personnel actually face pretty commonly it's about hundreds of soldiers each year and this surgery to fix that problem can cost anywhere between one hundred three hundred thousand dollars just for that surgery alone so so it is a huge problem not only to our military readiness but also to our economic budget

when it comes to the military. when i ask you about the kind of testing that they have to go through in order to join the military are they an accurate measure whether or not they are in fact ready for the military well as there's two different types of tests the first one is called an enduring test that's a fitness test so really that is. one minute of push ups two minutes of sit ups in a mile run and people call that easy by any standards you heard sushma say that in my story so bad one mile right in ten minutes none the less so you can practically walk that if you rock at a brisk pace now the second one is the more controversial one that's the one that's called the health test and what it's called inside the military is actually the tape test what they do is they measure the next and also the mid section for wit and if you don't pass it with your body. weight kind of standards they also proportion in the measurements of your neck in your mid line then actually you can get kicked out of military for that no matter how fit you are no matter if you are

the fastest runner of the best of the pushups you can be in trouble just for the size of your waist in your myth in your neck. the logical respondent to lopez. now to the presidential power to pardon power president obama apparently really uses on friday president obama pardoned seventeen people but even with this in mind the ministration has pardoned fewer people than any other president in recent history r.f.e. correspondent margaret howell has the story. one question is president obama less merciful than his predecessors ask me under and she's obama has the power presidential pardons but he rarely uses it even last week seventeen pardons paled in comparison to the thousands of applications he's received since taking office obama has pardoned one in fifty people who apply while george bush's pardon about one in thirty three and bill clinton pardoned one in eight pardons are important because they attempt to fix the errors the justice system makes and restore one's

ability to things like credit housing good employment on the federal books alone there are four hundred sixty six laws and six hundred ninety nine regulations that make felons life more difficult part is help people move on from their mistakes and avoid these laws and regulations so why haven't obama taken advantage of this power skeptics say obama stenchy pardon record reflects this event astray sions desire to avoid controversy and political risk so he does when he does pardon obama does so for seemingly minor offenses in many cases crimes that were committed decades ago and all nonviolent offenders meanwhile the innocence project estimates that anywhere between two point three and five percent of all people in prison are and if it was more than one million people behind bars in the usa equal more than fifty thousand people jailed with wrongful convictions this presidential pardon is an opportunity to write some of those wrongs the obama seems more interested in

trivial cases this isn't me. if it ever prayed to play judge and jury. don't forget about it quick and death on program would have included be a fascination with that if i'm from the guys without any due process or transparency so it makes you wonder why does the president is so much more interested in pardoning turkeys than you i thought of thins reaching out for help in washington d.c. margaret how r.t.e. and out of the g.s.a. where a new policy will take effect soon if you're a frequent flier chances are you waited in line at the airport while the t.s.a. confiscates anything from your body lotion to your nail clippers well some of that is about to change the t.s.a. is now allowing passengers to carry on some items that have been banned in the past among them small knives that's right you're not your as long as your knife is less than six centimeters long you'll be able to bring them on board for the first time

since two thousand and one razor blades and box cutters are still not allowed though but also ok to bring on board sports equipment like golf clubs hockey sticks and ski poles even though you are free to bring along your pool stick don't you dare bring your shampoo liquids more than three ounces are still a big no no the new rules are set to take effect april twenty fifth the idea is to make sure u.s. rules are more in line with international standards though the logic of allowing small knives but nobody lotions is puzzling for sub we are going to leave it off there but for more on the stories we cover check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash r t america and please also follow me on twitter at liz wall for now have a great night. for you.